Historians inform us that Sulimân had an altar at which he performed his devotions to God—w. n. b. e.—and in that oratory a tree made every day its appearance from the invisible world. When it arrived one day as usual, Sulimân asked: ‘What is thy name?’ The tree replied: ‘Kharrûb.’ He continued: ‘What is thy quality?’ It answered: ‘The destruction of royalty and power.’ Sulimân rejoined: ‘I have understood.’ After that the Creator of life and death sent him a revelation, that as his departure was at hand he ought to prepare for the journey to the next world. Sulimân then made his last will, and committed everything important to writing; then he besought the Lord Most Glorious and Most High to keep his death concealed from the genii and from the Satans, that they might finish the tasks he had imposed upon them. After that he put on the clothes for the inevitable journey, and entered the oratory which had been prepared for him of glass, and supported his body with the staff on which he was accustomed to lean when fatigued. The grasper of souls thereon took hold of his pure spirit, and conveyed him to the garden of paradise. The inconstant world occasionally thus addressed the following words of advice to his fellow-beings:
| Distich: | Seek not King Sulimân, for he is annihilated; The kingdom is the same, but where is the king? |
and sometimes it uttered these words:
| Distich: | To the eyes of the intelligent, Sulimân’s realm is but wind, But he is Sulimân who is free of the realm [of care].* |
It is said that after Sulimân had entered his oratory he spent most of his time in prayer, during which his ministers governed the kingdom, and the Satans, in their state of obedience, were from awe abstaining to look at his blessed face. At last, however, when he had entered the oratory, and taken leave of life, their glances unwillingly alighted on his countenance from the outside of the glass house, but they imagined him to be engaged in his devotions.
After the stay of Sulimân in that place had become protracted beyond all reasonable expectations, one of the Efrits entered the oratory by one window and left it by another, but, contrary to his previous experience, failed to hear the voice of Sulimân reading. He therefore said to the other Satans: ‘It is my opinion that Sulimân has departed from this world.’ In order to gain certainty on the subject, he then procured a beetle, whose nourishment is water and earth, to make it gnaw the staff on which Sulimân was leaning. Others say that the beetle gnawed the staff of his lordship of its own accord without the co-operation of the Satans, and that the staff broke one year after the decease of Sulimân, so that he fell down. Thus they were convinced of his death, and spread the information in the world.
It has been said that the wisdom of Sulimân in thus desiring to conceal his death, was to undeceive those men who believed in the pretensions of the Satans, by which they asserted that they were cognizant of hidden matters and of the secrets of futurity; but when Sulimân departed to the eternal mansion, and this great event remained unknown to them for a whole year, people became convinced of the falsehood of their pretensions. He whose name be glorified has said: ‘And when [his body] fell down, the genii plainly perceived that if they had known that which is secret they had not continued in a vile punishment.’* Several historians have alleged that the object of Sulimân’s wishing to keep his death a secret was, to get the demons [not to cease their labours, but] to complete the Holy House. God, however, knows best the true state of all matters.